B ETWEEN A ROW OF CUTTING TULIPS AND ANOTHER OF ALLIUMS, on a mounded “ridge” of soil created for the purpose, the sweet potatoes were tucked in here a week ago. You have to love a seed or plant that comes in the mail complete with recipes: how optimistic, how confidence-inspiring. My box of “slips” included all the details on planting, sure, but also on making sweet-potato fries and sweet-potato pie, and I cannot wait. But there are probably just a few details to consider before I fire up the stove:
Unlike white potatoes, where you plant a “seed potato” whose eyes are starting to sprout, with sweet potatoes you start with bits of vine called slips. Glenn Drowns of Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa, who lists more than 100 sweet-potato varieties in his amazing catalog, explains the origin of the word slip:
“A slip is a single plant (with small roots) that is sprouted on the sweet potato root and then slipped off so that you may plant it in the garden to grow a sweet potato plant.”
Each slip doesn’t look like much when it arrives—a piece of vine with some roots and maybe a leaf or two, usually a little pale and worse for the wear after days in transit. But it will quickly rebound if planted promptly according to some basic guidelines (that’s the above-ground bit of one a day or two after planting, above):
The more deep, loose soil you give the plants, the more easily roots (potatoes) will form, and apparently they will also be smoother if not expected to bump into to many obstacles when they grow. Hence the idea of creating a ridge (sort of an elongated hill), but a raised bed would be fine, too, or for that matter any well-cultivated area.
Space the plants 12 inches apart within the row and rows 36 inches apart, because these things take off in wild, vining fashion. I don’t mind; both adjacent rows of cutting bulbs (the tulips, right, and the alliums, left, in the photo above) will soon go dormant, and since I don’t need to dig to plant or harvest the sweets, it works out well; the bulbs won’t be disturbed by this neighbor in between.
Gardeners in the north may want to pre-heat the soil by stretching black plastic over their rows, as in the audio-less video I happened on (below) from Johnny’s Selected Seed, piercing the plastic every 12 inches to insert a slip. I skipped the plastic; my one long recycled piece of it was called into duty elsewhere this year, so we shall see.
Water each transplant in and firm the soil around it, and that’s about it…except one thing: If your slips arrive as mine did before the weather really settles, you’ll have to have some Reemay or an old sheet ready for protection. These are heat-lovers, not cold-hardy types.
In late summer, check the ridge by just digging in with your hand to see what’s formed, to judge readiness. Digging (as with white potatoes) is best done very carefully, to avoid piercing the roots; again here the ridge comes in handy, as you can basically “dig” by hand.
After digging, potatoes must be dried thoroughly to cure, and then stored at 55 to 60 degrees. With common varieties like ‘Beauregard,’ one that I am growing on my first major sweet-potato adventure, large potatoes up to 2 or more pounds are possible; other varieties vary widely in productivity, shape, size and even skin and flesh color. Just scan the list at Sand Hill to grasp the possibilities.
Want to try your hand at sweet potatoes? Longtime grower and mail-order source the Steele Plant Company in Tennessee is sold out for the season, as is Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine, but check in with Sand Hill to see if Glenn Drowns still has some of his “Season Closeout-General Assortment” specials left, the only thing he takes orders from after mid-May, and then ships late June into mid-July. You might get lucky. If not, order as soon as the catalogs arrive in early winter…to guarantee that homemade pie and sweet-potato fries in 2010.
Related posts:
Garden Friends,
Just a little FYI, if you have outside lighting do not purchase low cost bulbs, they will often break off up inside of your fixture. I just replaced mine and was able to use needle nose pliers, to remove the broken glass. The outside garden lighting also takes up keep. Just thought you would want to know that.
Anna
I love sweet potatoes: good to eat, pretty to look at (especially with their morning-glory like flowers), and fairly care free. I am planting 50 slips this year, but I need to dig them out early so I have time to cure them. Otherwise, they don’t store well (spoken from experience!).
It’s a great idea to plant them to spring bulbs that they can overrun. I’ll have to think about that for next year!
Welcome, Sylvie. Yes, the key to good storage is that curing, you are so right. It’s even true with winter squash, I think. Any damage to the skin or bruising or failure to let them dry properly and they deteriorate quickly. And a squishy sweet potato…well, not nice. See you soon again, I hope.
Well, I wish I’d seen this before. I’d never planted them and when I got mine, I figured it was all one thing and plunked the wad into the ground. Now that i look, it would appear I had actually purchased “one” group of slips. That would have been nice to be informed of in the catalog I’d ordered from. LOL
~Faith
Now you are inspiring me to plant sweet potatoes, which I haven’t done yet.
I am very pleased to have planted 2 blueberry bushes (Misty and O’Neal) this month. Isn’t it fun to keep adding new plants?
Harvesting last year’s sweet potatoes was the highlight of my gardening experience and I can’t wait to do it again this year…like digging for buried treasure, so fun. I recommend it for everyone!
@Faith: How long have they been in the ground? I’d be tempted to dig up and divide them into individual plants in the row if they are not more than a couple of weeks along.
Hi there-
How do you keep the earwigs and slugs in check w/ all the mulch shown in the photo?? We did a light mulch and now are fighting WW3 w/ a banner hatch of earwigs!
I occasionally get an earwig in a pot here (and inadvertently bring it back inside in fall, oops), but no real issue outdoors at all. As you know, they love moist spots where they can hide by day (they do their troublemaking at night).
I have read in bulletins like this one that you can trap them as you do slugs, with low cans (tuna type shape) with a little vegetable oil or vegetable oil with some bacon grease in it…or with rolled-up moist newspaper left overnight in the areas of the infestation, so that at daybreak they will crawl into it. You then have to go empty the traps, of course, drowning the earwigs in a bucket of water.
One thing I will say about my mulching: I never put it up against the trunks of things, nor do I put it on super-thick (two inches perhaps?). I also manage to avoid issues with slugs for the most part.
i have a question: how do i store sweet potatoe slips for next yr i bought the plants thru a nursery but want to save money by keeping some starts from my own plants but dont know how to store them for next yr………PLEASE HELP ME
THANK YOU JUDY J
Welcome, Judy. I have never done it, but I guess I would try growing a sweet potato as a houseplant all winter. I will have to do some research, but frankly am just not sure. Good question!
This may be a bit late…. I just found your website and have started browsing the past entries. But sweet potato slips are easily started. Any time of the year you can “root” a sweet potato in water. I usually put one in a pretty but dark vase so the roots aren’t as obvious. The top of the vase should be just a bit smaller than the thickest part of the potato. Fill with water and sit the potato on the vase so that about half of it is submerged. Set this in a sunny window sill. Within days, roots will start to grow and shortly after that, the green vines will begin. Keep the water fresh and make sure the potato doesn’t start to rot. (If it does, pitch it and start over.) I usually keep one rooted in the kitchen window, just because it is a beautiful ivy type plant. But the leaves are edible and nutritious. Add them to soups or use them in place of spinach in many recipes. If you are starting slips for outdoor planting, start about 6 – 8 weeks before you want to plant. I have planted the whole potato before with good results, or “slip” the vines from the potato and plant them as you described above. Or if I were up north and concerned about a short growing season, I would keep the slips in water just long enough to encourage stronger root growth before planting to give them a head start. They are definitely heat loving plants.
Welcome, Karen. This is great information, so helpful. Thank you. I am fascinated that sweet potato leaves are edible, and am going to harvest them when I do the tubers in an other week or two or three here, weather depending. And I will definitely grow some indoors as you say; I was going to do so in soil, like ahnging basket, but this sounds easier and more fun. See you soon again, I hope.